Tourniquet
by WackyD
Summary: "My god, my tourniquet. Return to me salvation..." An Anya-centric fic. Very angsty.


Tourniquet 

            Summers' House, March 9th, 1: 26am        

Anya was curled up on the couch, as all the beds and sleeping bags already had occupants. She looked around the room, blinking back tears of tiredness and...

     Unwantedness, if that was a word. She was alone, unnoticed.

     As usual.

     A silent sigh escaped through her lips. She might as well try to fall asleep. Pulling the blanket over her, she rearranged her head on the lumpy couch pillow and closed her eyes.

     Only to open them again as suddenly an unbearable stench filled the room, the smell of rotting corpses and burning flesh.

     The First, for that was all it could be, was standing over her, smiling.

     "_You're one of mine, Anyanka._" It snarled.

            Summers' House, March 12th, 3:41pm.

_Her life whirled around her, blood-red dreams of death and torture._

_                Can't breathe. _

_                She sucked air in desperately; unshed tears fizzing in her eyes as she tried to hold them back._

_                Can't breathe._

_                Images flashed before her horrified eyes, mangled bodies, as seeing but not seeing eyes stared accusingly at her._

_                Can't breathe._

_                They were pulling her down with hands of rotting flesh, pulling her down into the whirlpool of blood and self-loathing. _

_                Can't breathe._

_                How could she have done this?_

_                Can't breathe._

            "Anya?"

     She came out of the vision, whatever it was, with a snap, tilting her head to stare at Willow. "Yeah?" She tried to sound assertive, but her voice came out a trembling hoarse rasp.

     "Are you okay? You looked sorta spacey." There was genuine concern in Willow's eyes, but Anya shrugged it off.

     "Fine. Just tired, that's all."

     "None of us can get much sleep with these Potentials camped all over the place." Xander spoke up, gesturing to the numerous sleeping bags littering the floor.

     They were all clustered around the dining room table; Buffy, Xander, Willow, Anya, Spike, Dawn, and Giles.

     Anya's head felt like it might explode, and she couldn't seem to catch her breath.

     Couldn't seem to get the images of her dead victims out of her head.

     "Anya!" 

     She realized too late that Xander had just asked her a question.

     "Sorry." She whispered, looking at the floor. 

     His eyes softened. "Are you sure you're okay?"

     "I'm fine! Just fuck off." She snapped. She didn't like it when he looked at her like that. It made her remember the times when they were together, when he looked at her like that all the time. 

     It hurt to remember.

     "Sor-_ry_." Xander mumbled, shooting a glare in her direction. Anya pointedly ignored it.

     Buffy raised her eyebrows at them, and then continued her Apocalypse monologue. "Some of us are going to die. That's the truth. But it's up to us to make sure that not everyone dies—"

     After awhile Anya was able to just tune her out. She tried to focus her thoughts on happy things, like beer and sex and monstrous trolls suddenly crashing in and ripping out Buffy's vocal cords, but it didn't work.

     She kept flashing back to a couple days ago, when it had started.

     Summer's House, March 9th, 1:34am

     "Wha-what?" Anya squeaked, staring at The First. It hadn't taken one precise form, but instead was constantly shifting into different shapes, of, she presumed, all the dead people there had ever been. Looking at it too long made her feel dizzy.

     "_I said you're one of mine_." The First repeated, eyes changing from brown to blue to green to red and back again.

     "But...I'm not." Anya explained patiently, looking furtively around to see if anyone was awake and could save her or something.

     The First put its hand upon her cheek, almost touching it but not quite. "_Did you kill your father?_" It asked sweetly, the tone of voice almost more frightening than the question itself.

     Anya froze. "How-how do you know that...no. I didn't kill anyone. I-I'm not a murderer." She was shaking now.

     The First smiled.

     The Bronze, March 12th, 5:56pm

     A local punk rock band was playing on the stage, pounding out the lyrics in hoarse voices.

     "_Stay with me,_

_     See who I am._

_     Take me to,_

_     A place where you can't see me._

_     See who I am._

_     And the blood-stains on my hands._"

     "God, they suck." Willow offered cheerfully. Anya and Xander shrugged.

     "I miss the Dingoes." Xander said nostalgically.

     "I can't believe Buffy actually let us out of the house." Anya announced happily. "I was really starting to go stir-crazy."

     "Ditto." Willow said. "Ooh! Happy song!" The band had started up a song with a livelier beat, something easy to dance to. "You guys feel like dancing?"

     Xander nodded enthusiastically, but Anya just shrugged. "You guys go ahead. I'll wait here."

     Xander and Willow nodded and headed out to the dance floor, while Anya sighed quietly and sipped her beer.

     And then she was falling again, falling into the same vision she'd had this afternoon, but it seemed to be clearer now—

                _The whirlpool of her past, with all its death, had started swirling in her mind again._

_                Falling forever into the darkness._

_                Tears came, and she couldn't hold them back any longer. They coursed down her cheeks, mixing with the blood from where she'd bitten her lip in dismay._

_                Falling forever into the darkness._

_                She picked out the clearest image from the crimson miasma, something she remembered only too well, but had repressed with time._

_                Falling forever into the darkness._

_                It was of a horribly mangled body, hardly recognizable as the cadaver of a human man anymore. The snow around it was painted red with blood. _

_Falling forever into the darkness._

_The corpse's face belonged to her father._

_                Falling forever into the darkness._

     "Anya? Anya!" Xander's alarmed yelp reached her ears just in time to snap her out of it.

     "Anya, what happened? What's wrong?" Willow asked, worry showing plainly in her eyes.

     Anya touched her cheeks and found they were wet. 

     "Nothing." She replied.

     Summers' House, March 9th 1:42am

     The First hadn't said anything for a while, just standing there, shifting its form continually, and staring at her.

     Anya wasn't listening to its silence. "I'm not a murderer. I'm not a murderer. I'm not a murderer." She whispered to herself over and over, as if her saying it a million times would undo what she'd done.

     "_You can't deny it, Anyanka._" The First said pleasantly.

     "My name is Anya."

     "_You never were Anya, and you will never be Anya. You are a killer. You've got that coppery tang of blood rooted deep within your core, and secretly you long to spill it again.__"_

     Anya's throat had gone dry. "I don't know what you're talking about, so fuck off—"

     "_You know exactly what I'm talking about, Anyanka_."

     "No..." She buried her face in her hands. "That's behind me now."

     "_It's not behind you. It's not in front of you. It is you._"  
     It felt like she couldn't breathe. "Please..."

     "_Don't beg for mercy, Anyanka. It doesn't become you._" The First said coldly. 

     She didn't say anything.

     The First's eyes had settled on one form; colorless, penetrating. "_If you refuse to believe me, I will give you proof. I will show your past. And when I am finished, you will truly beg for mercy. And then you will kill for me._" 

     Sjornjost, Sometime during Winter, 886

     Anyanka trembled slightly, but otherwise showed no signs of remorse as she looked at her father's body lying in the scarlet stained snow.

     _"I wish that all the men in this dammed village would die a horrible death!"_

The wish had seemed so normal. But Anyanka had forgotten the remnants of her past life had lived in this village.

     She whirled around as the crunch of snow under feet heralded the approach of another.

     It was her mother.

     "Aud?" It would have broken Anyanka's heart, if hers had been beating, to hear the timid ness and fear in her mother's voice.

     "I do not of whom you speak. I am Anyanka, patron saint of scorned women."

     Her mother began to cry upon seeing her husband's body in the snow. "Aud. Did you do this? Did you do this to him?"

     "He-he deserved it. They all deserved it." The words sounded hollow even to her.

     "Please, Aud, take it back!" Her mother was sobbing on her knees now, tugging at Anyanka's skirt. "Please, Aud. Please! I'll do anything. Just take it back, please take it back!"

     Anyanka spat contemptuously on the woman and walked away.

     Outside the Bronze, March 12th, 6:31pm

     Anya wept, leaning against a brick building far enough down from the Bronze so that Willow and Xander wouldn't see her. She'd covered up by saying she had a headache, and had to go out and get some fresh air.

     The world was covered in blood.

     She was a murderer, she knew that now. She couldn't contradict it, and that meant the First would be coming for her.

     To make her one of it's own, to make her kill for it.

     And she couldn't let that happen.

     Her head hurt like hell, and her face was buried in her hands until she became aware of approaching footsteps.

     "Ahn?" Xander's was so quiet and soft she could barely hear it. 

     "Leave me alone." Her head was on fire with pain. Of course it was him. It would always be him; following her and hunting her down so he could offer his steadfast support and make her die inside because he didn't want her. "I hate you!" She was barely aware of the tears plummeting down her face. "I hate you! I hate you! I hate you..." Her knees collapsed and only Xander's arms encircling her kept her from falling on the pavement. "I hate..." She couldn't breathe.

     "Shh, Ahn, shh..." He was being so gentle, stroking her hair softly and resting his lips on the top of her head.

     "Xander, I can't do this." She was sobbing her heart out now in his shoulder, soaking his shirt. "Please, I can't do this."

     He rocked her back and forth, still stroking her hair and held her there forever and never.

_"Now I will tell you what I've done for you_

_50 thousand tears I've cried_

_Screaming deceiving and bleeding for you_

_And you still won't hear me_

_Don't want your hand this time I'll save myself_

_Maybe I'll wake up for once_

_Not tormented daily defeated by you_

_Just when I thought I'd reached the bottom_

_I'm dying again_

_I'm going under_

_Drowning in you_

_I'm falling forever_

_I've got to break through_

_I'm going under_

_Blurring and stirring the truth and the lies_

_So I don't know what's real and what's not_

_Always confusing the thoughts in my head_

_So I can't trust myself anymore_

_I'm dying again_

_I'm going under_

_Drowning in you_

_I'm falling forever_

_Got to break through_

_So go on and scream_

_Scream at me I'm so far away_

_I won't be broken again_

_I've got to breathe I can't keep going under_

_I'm dying again_

_I'm going under_

_Drowning in you_

_I'm falling forever_

_Got to break through_

_I'm going under_

_I'm going under_

_I'm going under"_

     "Ahn, sweetheart?" He asked when a million years later they broke apart.

     Anya wasn't listening. Her eyes were fixed on a point just behind him.

     The First was laughing and laughing and laughing, it's mouth stretched in a grotesque parody of a grin. "_He'll be the first you'll kill._"

     She broke free of Xander and ran like a wild thing, stumbling wildly as she fled from him and what she might have done to him.

     The First appeared in front of her, but she ran through it, not seeing anything anymore. It was too much. She fell, scraping her knees brutally on the asphalt of the street and lay there, broken in every way.

     But as much as she wanted to curl up inside herself and fade away, she couldn't stay there forever. She got to her feet slowly and walked back to her apartment, empty soul and empty heart and empty world.

     Barely conscious she was in her apartment, Anya sank down onto the floor and began to cry—

     Or would have if there was anything left in her to feel self-pity. She choked, coughed until the urge to sob was gone.

     Then knew what she had to do. If she stayed, she'd only hurt everyone, no matter how hard she tried not too.

     She stumbled towards the kitchen—

     The First in the form of her father, a mangled body stood in front of her, trying to scare her.

     Anya laughed, a cold ringing sound and walked through her past.

     She smiled, and it was empty, devoid of any emotion. She'd already run from the one person who might have been able to save her.

     She picked up the sharpest knife and lurched towards the bathroom, then slashed twice, once on either wrist.

     Vaguely aware of the blood pouring into the sink, she watched it swirl down the drain and laughed while the tears slipped down her cheeks and mixed with the red.

"I tried to kill the pain 

_But only brought more_

_I lay dying_

_And I'm pouring crimson regret and betrayal_

_I'm dying praying bleeding and screaming_

_Am I too lost to be saved_

_Am I too lost?_

_My god my tourniquet_

_Return to me salvation_

_My god my tourniquet_

_Return to me salvation_

_Do you remember me_

_Lost for so long_

_Will you be on the other side_

_Or will you forget me_

_I'm dying praying bleeding and screaming_

_Am I too lost to be saved_

_Am I too lost?_

_My god my tourniquet_

_Return to me salvation_

My god my tourniquet 

_Return to me salvation_

_My wounds cry for the grave_

_My soul cries for deliverance_

_Will I be denied Christ_

_Tourniquet_

_My suicide"_

Summers House, March 12, 9:18pm   

Xander was sitting on the couch, numbly watching some animated show on Cartoon Network when a cautious knock at the door startled him out of his daze.

He rushed to the door and yanked it open, and sighed with relief as it revealed Anya standing there. It smelled faintly like something rotting or burning and he wondered what she'd been doing.

But it didn't matter. She was here, and everything was going to be all right.

He made to hug her and gasped with astonishment as his arms slipped right through her.

_My god my tourniquet_

_Return to me salvation_

_My god my tourniquet_

_Return to me salvation…_

_Author's Note: I know, very angst-y and confusing. I was bored, and I felt like killing off a character. *evil laughter rings out in the distance* Please please please R&R and I'll be your best friend forever! The songs are both by Evanesence (the best band ever!), the first one is called 'Going Under' and the second one is Tourniquet. Buffy the Vampire Slayer belongs to Joss Whedon (aka God.) and Mutant Enemy. Thanks for reading!!!!_


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